What is DECA?

DECA is an organization that prepares high school and college students for careers in marketing, finance, hospitality, and management. In other words, it is a place to practice skills in the listed careers. There are two types of events–written events and roleplay events–and both have many subsections that have different requirements. For example, with written events one may need a 20 page documentation and slideshow or just a slideshow of a theoretical business idea, an actual business idea, or theoretical marketing for a business. Additionally, written events can include assisting a business with a real-world issue, documenting how it improved the business. Written events end in presenting one’s idea to a judge.
For roleplays, most of them have two parts: the test and the actual roleplaying. In roleplays, a certain topic within a subject–such as hospitality and tourism’s concept of planning a trip last year–is given and one must study certain subtopics within it for a 100-question test. For the roleplaying section, 15 minutes along with a prompt are given to teams. These teams use the time to decide how to solve the problem or plan the given prompt and present their idea to judges.

An Overview of the Event

Seymour’s DECA chapter arrived at the event on Sunday, March 1 and settled in. The first day involved briefings and an opening ceremony (which ran until almost midnight and awarded SHS with the community service award for collecting the most books in a book sale). Starting at the hour of 9 A.M., presentations began. Waiting for one’s presentation time filled everyone with anxiety, but presenting was exciting. Most free time was spent practicing for the group, but outside of competition the group was able to explore during other downtime.The preliminary rounds finished, and the groups from Seymour that made it to the final round of judging were Ivy Ye and Isabelle Young and Kellan Stanfield. After the final round, everyone ventured to an escape room and ate sushi together, celebrating a good competition. In the end, Kellan Stanfield placed third in his event, allowing him to qualify for nationals.Everyone enjoyed the event; Brooklyn Howell mentioned that she “learned to grow [her] business endeavors through networking, but…also learned to cherish simple moments with [her] peers.” Natalie also commented that she “had an amazing time building [connections] with people from different schools…and…people in the club as well.”

My Experience

I heard about DECA last year through Ivy Ye’s intense studying for the test during chemistry. I wondered why anyone would do that, but coming into this year I decided to join DECA. Because this was my first year, I had no idea about how anything worked and settled for the Independent Business Plan category, a written event requiring a 20-page detailed, cleaned, pretty documentation of a business idea solving a real-world issue and a 20 page slideshow to present it to judges. Having no idea where to start, I used every source I could find, and I mean every source I could find (my bibliography is almost two pages long at a 6pt font).
Arriving at the hotel, the event was not at all what I expected it to be. I shared a room with Diego Lopez and Bryon Zarate, and when we all went to get briefed on our competition I found myself extremely nervous. The following day, I was given the earliest time possible: 9 A.M. I rushed to Starbucks with Natalie and Bryon, snatching a Grape Olio and running back to Brooklyn’s room to practice with her before our judging events. When I was brought into my judging room, I was told to go to slot B for my event. There was an issue, however: I couldn’t find my event acronym.
Until that point, I had assumed my event name was IBP, so I walked around the room for a couple minutes feeling stumped. Eventually, it dawned on me that my acronym was EIP and I had walked past my section numerous times. Despite this start, I presented and was given questions about why I had chosen the name, the idea of cyber security, etc. Though my presentation wasn’t perfect, the judge found a keen interest in the fact I had mentioned that Montana has no state tax. As a business owner, his main cut from revenue is due to taxes, so he appreciated me pointing that out.
A few hours later, the final round qualifiers were posted. I was among them and was one of the last people to present, giving me the most time but also wearing out judges. I waited an hour in the waiting room, as all judges were behind due to weather conditions that morning, and talked to some really cool people–someone had made a plant defroster and brought in an atom model! As I approached the judging room for the last time, seeing the same judge and a new judge, I assumed that it would be roughly the same and the questions wouldn’t be too intricate about my financials or

data.
I was completely wrong. I was asked about why specifically I chose two months to have a revenue boost, how I calculated age with advertising, and how I found business outreach both during and after my presentation. I was really nervous answering these questions, but because I alone researched everything, I knew the answer well and provided a solid reason for my numbers, hopefully establishing credibility.
The wait for the results was long and anxiety-inducing. For the rewards, my event was near the end. Listening to an hour of other people’s names being called only increased my worry. When I was finally called up, alongside the other 10 finalist groups, I crossed my fingers and hoped my name wasn’t called for sixth, fifth, or fourth place. Only third and above qualify for nationals, and as they finished fourth, my name was called for third.
I’m really excited to go to nationals, and I’m happy I’ll be able to go with at least one person I know, Brooklyn Howell. At the moment, I’m working on revising my slides, but I will shift my focus to presenting soon.